ONE DAD OF the Year Award, this way, please.

Jeremiah Heaton of Abingdon, Virginia was playing with his 7-year-old daughter Emily last winter when she asked him if she could ever be a real princess.

Not wanting to lie to her, but also not wanting to make a ‘false promise’, he said yes.

Then he searched the internet for unclaimed land all over the world, eventually finding Bir Tawil, an 800-square-mile patch of desert that was the subject of a border dispute between Sudan and Egypt.

The Washington Post reports that after a few months, Heaton embarked on a journey through Egypt to find Bir Tawil.

There, on his daughter’s birthday, he planted a blue flag designed by his children on a hill and proclaimed it the Kingdom of North Sudan.

Since he is the self-described ‘king’ of the nation, his daughter is now a princess. So he says.

He argues that his claim over the ‘nation’ is legitimate, as planting a flag is how countries were claimed historically. He plans to formally establish the Kingdom of North Sudan, and says he’s confident he’ll be welcomed by the African Union.

He told the Washington Post:

I wanted to show my kids I will literally go to the ends of the earth to make their wishes and dreams come true.

Some would call that spoiling them, Jeremiah, but we won’t go there.

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